After finishing their work at the Steak and Ale Restaurant... in south Richmond on the night of October 7, 1993, Stack drove her Volvo sedan and Martin drove his red sports car to another restaurant in Richmond where they had something to eat. James Jones, the night auditor of a motel adjacent to the Steak and Ale Restaurant parking lot, was standing outside the motel talking to another employee when he saw Stack and Martin return to the parking lot after 2:00 a.m. on October 8.

Jones noticed Stack and Martin standing beside one of the two cars talking and kissing until Jones returned to work inside the motel. Twenty to twenty-five minutes later, Jones heard two loud noises, "two or three seconds [apart], maybe up to ten seconds" and saw a third car being driven from the area.

When Jones looked toward the parking lot, he noticed that the Volvo's engine was running and its lights were on, but that the red sports car was gone. As he walked toward the Volvo, Jones noticed a body lying on the ground and immediately called the police.

Harold Giles, a Richmond Police officer ... got Jones's call ... and ... found Stack and Martin, both shot in the head, lying face down in a pool of blood, with their hands touching. Giles testified that "they were trying to communicate to each other, but I couldn't make out what they were saying." In addition to observing that the Volvo's engine was running and its lights were on, Giles also noticed that the front passenger door was open....

When Detective Thomas R. Searles arrived at the scene at "approximately" 6:00 a.m., Stack and Martin had been taken to the hospital.... One photograph of the front seat of Stack's car shows that it had been ransacked, with Stack's personal property and purse in disarray in the front seat. Searles found a .45 caliber cartridge case and two .45 caliber bullets that were approximately one foot apart.

Stack was comatose when she arrived at the hospital and died some time later without regaining consciousness. Although Martin had been shot in the head and suffered extensive brain injuries, he survived and was able to testify.

Dr. William Broaddus, a neurosurgeon who treated Martin, testified that the bullet ... damaged the left side of his brain, resulting in Martin's loss of his left eye, a partial paralysis on the right side of his body, and an impairment in his ability to generate language. However, Dr. Broaddus said that Martin's comprehension, memory, and intelligence were perfectly normal....

Martin testified that he and Stack were seated in her car in the parking lot when a man Martin later identified from a photographic spread as Graham approached the car. Graham had a gun and told them to get out of the car. After Stack and Martin got out of the car, Graham told Martin to hand over his wallet and car keys to another man who was with him, but unarmed. As Graham held "the gun on [Stack and Martin]," the other man first got in Stack's car and started it, then got in Martin's car, where ... the other man "saw" Martin's compact disc recordings (CDs). While the other man was in Martin's car, Graham told Stack and Martin that if they would lie down on the parking lot and close their eyes, he would not hurt them. Even though both did as they were directed, they were each shot in the head as they lay on the ground with their eyes closed.2

2 Authorities suspected Mark Sheppard, a friend of Graham's, to be Graham's accomplice. Graham, too, asserts that Sheppard was his accomplice. And, the Commonwealth suggested during summation at the close of the guilt phase of trial that Sheppard was the other assailant. Indeed, the two had a history of violent crime together. Sheppard was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for the murders of Richard and Rebecca Rosenbluth. See Sheppard v. Commonwealth, 464 S.E.2d 131 (Va. 1995). Graham also was convicted of capital murder in the Rosenbluth murders, but he received a life sentence. See Graham v. Commonwealth, 464 S.E.2d 128 (Va. 1995). Sheppard, however, was not charged in connection with the murder of Sheryl Stack.

Although Martin does not remember how long it was after he closed his eyes that he was shot, Graham was the last person Martin saw with a gun before he closed his eyes. After he was shot, Martin realized that his "car was being started and the car was coming at [him] so[he] quickly rolled over to get out of the way of the car." After they were shot, Stack and Martin were holding hands and he was trying to talk to her.

Priscilla Booker, who had been living with Graham ... since early July 1993, testified that on the morning of Stack's murder, she saw Graham in the same red car as that shown in a police photograph of Martin's car. Later that morning, as Booker was watching the news on a local television station, she mentioned to Graham the reports of the shooting in the Steak and Ale parking lot. Graham's response was, "why do [you] worry about other people."

Graham then asked Booker to stop looking at the news and, when she continued to do so, he became upset. When Booker asked Graham why she should not watch the news, he replied that "he knew who did it[,] but he didn't."

Two or three days after the Stack murder, Booker found Martin's box of over 200 CDs in the trunk of her car. Graham told her that he had bought these CDs for $10, and Booker put them in storage. The police recovered Martin's car a few days after the crimes, but were unable to obtain any useful fingerprint evidence from it.

On the morning of December 3, 1993, Graham, who was incarcerated in the Chesterfield County jail on another charge, made a telephone call to Booker in the presence of Gary McGregor, a Chesterfield County deputy sheriff. Graham told Booker several times during the conversation to "go into the closet, get the bag with the contents and get rid of it." McGregor immediately reported this conversation to his superiors. Shortly thereafter, Detective W.F. Showalter of the Chesterfield County Police Department went to Booker's apartment. There he found a .45 caliber pistol in a plastic bag in a linen closet.

The gun was heavily oiled, and the police were unable to recover any fingerprints from it. However, Booker testified that she had seen the transaction in which Graham had obtained the gun in September 1993, and that since that time, Graham had kept it in his constant possession. Booker testified that Graham even slept with it. After examining the gun, the bullets, and the cartridge case found at the scene, Ann Davis Jones, a firearms identification expert, testified that Graham's gun was the weapon from which the bullets and the cartridge case found at the scene had been fired and ejected.

The police found Martin's CDs in a storage locker rented by Booker's mother. The CDs were examined by Leland W. Kennedy, a fingerprint expert, who testified that 31 of the 48 identifiable fingerprints found on the CDs were those of Graham.

Graham v. Commonwealth, 459 S.E.2d 97, 98-100 (Va. 1995)

(sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin)

  

USA (Virginia) Andre L. Graham, black, aged 29

Amnesty.org

November 30, 1999

Andre Graham is scheduled to be executed on 9 December 1999 in Virginia. He was sentenced to death in 1994 for the murder of Sheryl Stack. If executed, he will be the 14th prisoner to be put to death in Virginia this year, the highest annual total since the state resumed executions in 1982.

In the early hours of 8 October 1993, Sheryl Stack and Edward Martin, both white, were shot in the head in a car park after being approached by at least two assailants, who then drove off in Martin's car. Sheryl Stack was killed, but Edward Martin survived.

Edward Martin identified Andre Graham as one of the assailants in a photo line-up. He then testified at trial that Graham was the last person he had seen with a gun, and forensic evidence indicated that it was Graham's gun which had been used. Martin was unable to say, however, how much time passed between him and Sheryl Stack being told to lie face down on the ground and the shots being fired. He also testified that another man, Mark Sheppard, had been one of the assailants. Sheppard was not charged in connection with this crime; he was sentenced to death for another murder and executed in January 1999.

Edward Martin had failed to pick Sheppard out in a photo line-up and instead picked someone else not involved in the crime. Despite the fact that this error undermined his credibility as an eyewitness, it was not disclosed to the defence until it emerged during the trial in cross-examination of a police witness. Post-conviction appeals, on the grounds that the defence lawyers should have immediately called for a postponement of proceedings, have been unsuccessful. The defence lawyers also failed to tell the jury that Andre Graham had a constitutional right not to testify at the trial, and that his decision not to testify should not be used against him. This was a serious oversight given the possibility that a juror might interpret a defendant's failure to testify as an admission of guilt.

Graham does not deny being present at the crime, but has always denied being the gunman. Before the judge sentenced him to death, he stated there were ''three of us there'' and denied shooting Stack and Martin. Under Virginia law, only the person who fires the gun (the ''triggerman'') can be sentenced to death. On appeal, Andre Graham's lawyers have argued that letters sent to him on death row from Sheppard support his claim that he was not the triggerman. The letters contain such lines as: ''You didn't smoke [kill] those people, and I tell everybody that'' and ''Yes, it is fucked up that you're here for some shit you didn't do.'' The appeal courts have ruled that this new evidence does not meet the standard of reliability required for a successful appeal.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases, irrespective of issues of guilt or innocence. Every death sentence is an affront to human dignity; every execution serves to deepen a culture of violence. The shooting of Sheryl Stack and Edward Martin was a shocking crime. An execution is likewise a cold-blooded killing of a human being who has been captured and rendered defenceless.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Virginia continues to execute prisoners at an alarming rate. Since it resumed executing in 1982, it has put 72 prisoners to death. Only Texas (195 executions), which has a population three times as large as Virginia, has executed more.

In an editorial in the Virginia newspaper, the Virginian-Pilot, on 20 November 1999, the paper asked: ''What has been gained by these deaths? Perhaps, a measure of solace for some of those who've lost loved ones in terrible brutal ways. It is tempting to say their comfort is justification enough. But punishment meted out by the state must be more than a substitute for individual revenge. It is a measure of a society's moral code, of its regard for justice, mercy, and the rule of law. It is not from sympathy for the predators who have committed atrocities that the death penalty should be abolished, but from a profound aspiration to elevate society above the killers' baseness and depravity. When the state kills in the name of justice, it makes murderers of those on whose behalf it acts.''